BishopAccountability.org
	Timothy Radcliffe on the Crisis By Andrew Brown Guardian April 9, 2010 http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/andrewbrown/2010/apr/09/religion-catholicism-timothy-radcliffe-crisis Also this morning, Timothy Radcliffe writes in the Tablet on why he is still a Catholic. He is one of the most personally impressive Christians I have ever known; I don't like to write about that sort of thing partly because of an old joke which says that the superego is that part of the personality dissolved by alcohol. Well, goodness is that part of the personality which dissolved in journalism and any attempt to describe or testify to it results in absurdity or worse – cf Malcolm Muggeridge. However, I listen carefully to anything Timothy Radcliffe has to say, and his defence of the Vatican is interesting as well as well-informed: It is generally imagined that the Vatican is a vast and efficient organisation. In fact it is tiny. The CDF only employs 45 people, dealing with doctrinal and disciplinary issues for a Church which has 1.3 billion members, 17 per cent of the world's population, and some 400,000 priests. When I dealt with the CDF as Master of the Dominican Order, it was obvious that they were struggling to cope. Documents slipped through the cracks. Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger lamented to me that the staff was simply too small for the job. People are furious with the Vatican's failure to open up its files and offer a clear explanation of what happened. Why is it so secretive? Angry and hurt Catholics feel a right to transparent government. I agree. But we must, in justice, understand why the Vatican is so self-protective. There were more martyrs in the twentieth century than in all the previous centuries combined. Bishops and priests, Religious and laity were assassinated in Western Europe, in Soviet countries, in Africa, Latin America and Asia. Many Catholics still suffer imprisonment and death for their faith. Of course, the Vatican tends to stress confidentiality; this has been necessary to protect the Church from people who wish to destroy her. So it is understandable that the Vatican reacts aggressively to demands for transparency and will read legitimate requests for openness as a form of persecution. And some people in the media do, without any doubt, wish to damage the credibility of the Church. But we owe a debt of gratitude to the press for its insistence that the Church face its failures. If it had not been for the media, then this shameful abuse might have remained unaddressed. Confidentiality is also a consequence of the Church's insistence on the right of everyone accused to keep their good name until they are proved to be guilty. This is very hard for our society to understand, whose media destroy people's reputations without a thought. Why go? If it is to find a safer haven, a less corrupt Church, then I think that you will be disappointed. I see that I have quoted much more than I meant to. But there is no fluff in his piece. Go read the whole thing.
Any original material on these pages is copyright © BishopAccountability.org 2004. Reproduce freely with attribution.